US pays Cameron highest compliment of all

I am not sure what I will say to him: Syrian rebel leader General Salim Idris who Tory MP Brooks Newmark met last week on the Syrian border

Someone said a week is a long time in politics – but in less than two days British politics has been turned on its head.

On
Thursday night, I was as deeply disappointed as David Cameron when the
Commons voted against military action in Syria.

It was as bad as
anything that has happened to the Prime Minister since he entered No 10
in 2010.

Ed Miliband, who with breathtaking cynicism engineered the defeat, thought he had achieved a huge victory over Mr Cameron.

I
would love to have been a fly on the wall in Miliband’s home last night
when he was told of President Obama’s remarkable intervention from the
White House. I imagine it wiped the smile off his face.

Far
from disowning Mr Cameron for having let him down, or accusing him of
having ‘bungled’ the matter, as some rash commentators claimed the White
House viewed Thursday’s defeat, Mr Obama said he wanted to take a leaf
from Mr Cameron’s book. He could hardly pay him a higher compliment.

Mr
Cameron may have lost Thursday’s vote but after Obama’s comments, the
Prime Minister is clearly back on the political and moral high ground.

The
President of the United States of America is taking his lead from the
Prime Minister by consulting the democratically elected representatives
in his country, just as Mr Cameron bravely did here. So much for
Britain no longer being America’s best friend.

On
Thursday night, I, like most others, believed the Commons vote put an
end to any notion of us supporting military strikes in Syria. Now I am
not so sure. It will take Congress two or three weeks to resolve the
issue.

By then, the UN
inspectors report will have been subjected to forensic analysis and we
will be much closer to validating evidence about the chemical attack in
Damascus.

In addition, it
will allow time for our MPs to examine the report on the attack by
American intelligence agencies. Their evidence was far more
authoritative than that published by our own Joint Intelligence
Committee. Crucially, the impressive American evidence came too late for
the Commons vote.

Many
MPs who said they were voting against military strikes said they needed
more evidence and more time. Well, now they’ve got it and we can see if
they are as good as their word.

I
believe it is now at least possible that there could be a second vote
in the Commons – and that that vote could produce a different result.

'Breathtaking cynicism': Labour leader David Miliband, left, and Tory and Lib Dem rebels engineered the defeat of the government's resolution to attack the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, right

I
hope that happens because I know how much the Syrian people want our
help. I know Syria well. I have met President Assad and visited Syria as
recently as last week.

I
told the rebels David Cameron was about to come to their rescue with Mr
Obama. I felt I had let them down when we voted against military action.

It made my blood boil to hear MPs talking nonsense, such as the rebels being to blame for the chemical attack.

The
Commons vote had barely taken place when American Secretary of State
John Kerry made it clear that US intelligence had established beyond
reasonable doubt that that was totally untrue.

Having
felt we had let down the Syrian people, I now have fresh hope that Mr
Obama, the US Congress, our Parliament and Mr Cameron can come together
after all and ensure that Assad does not go unpunished for his
appalling war crime.